Biden’s death row commutations draws chorus of mixed reactions

A chorus of supporters and critics have emerged following the commutation of nearly every federal death row inmate by President Biden, whose decision came at a time when he’s trying to frame a so-far troubled legacy.

The president on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates, reclassifying their sentences from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

The move leaves only three “hard cases” behind — that of two notorious mass shooters who carried out their killings in a church and synagogue and one of the brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.

Biden said in a written statement announcing the move that the discrepancy between who was and was not commuting was in line with his administration’s stance to impose a moratorium on federal executions, with the exception of terrorism cases and those of hate-motivated mass murder.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in the statement.

“Guided by my conscience and my experience … I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he added.

Biden’s commutation announcement came while he is being cast as missing from some major action in Washington in recent days. 

He was mostly absent from the public eye for much of the past week as congressional lawmakers and President-elect Trump wrangled over government funding measures, except for a couple of local stops around Washington. He spent the weekend up to and including Monday at the White House, but he opted to not make any public appearances or deliver any public remarks about the commutations.

Still, criminal justice groups that advocate against the death penalty were among those who lauded the decision.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said Biden’s “courageous” decision shined a light on needed reforms. The American Civil Liberties Union’s executive director, Anthony Romero, said the move locked in Biden’s legacy as “a leader who stands for racial justice, humanity and morality.” And the Equal Justice Initiative said Biden’s clemency could mark a “turning point in the history of capital punishment in the United States.”

The three death row inmates not granted clemency by Biden on Monday fall in line with being part of the type of cases not included in the administration’s moratorium.

They are Robert D. Bowers, who was the gunman at the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Dylann Roof, who in 2015 opened fire on Black parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is one of two brothers who carried out the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon. They all still face execution.

The three men committed some of the most high-profile crimes of the past decade, which included hate crimes and charges of terrorism. Some advocates said Biden’s commutations, though sweeping, fall short because of their exclusion.

The Rev. Sharon Risher, whose mother, Ethel Lee Lance, and two cousins were killed by Roof, said Monday that Biden’s decision to exclude the convicted killers is “unfair” to victims’ families.

“If you're going to commute 37 and not 40 – now you're playing judge, President Biden,” Risher said tearfully during a video press conference held by the nonprofit Death Penalty Action. “And I need you to understand that when you put a killer on death row, the families are left to be hostages for the years and years of appeals that will continue to come.”

Ohio Republican state Rep. Jean Schmidt, who witnessed the Boston Marathon bombing after completing the race, said in a statement distributed by Death Penalty Action that she was initially thrilled Tsarnaev was sentenced to death but has since changed her position.

“I believe he deserves life in prison without parole, and I am disturbed that President Biden has not commuted his death sentence to life without parole," she said. 

Biden also faced criticism for commuting the death sentences in the first place.

Jorge Avila-Torrez was among those death row inmates whose sentence was commuted. He was found guilty in 2014 of strangling naval officer Amanda Snell inside her Arlington, Va., barrack and later pleaded guilty to the 2005 murder of two Illinois girls, aged 8 and 9.

Jonathan Fahey, a former federal prosecutor who convicted Avila-Torrez, called Biden’s clemency “outrageous.”

“Joe Biden said he couldn't do this in good conscience, suggesting there was something wrong with implementing the death penalty on a case that a jury heard all of the facts — with aggravating and mitigating factors for and against the death penalty — and decided it definitely was an appropriate sentence,” Fahey said. “So this idea that he has this higher moral authority than a jury, than Congress and the American people, is really offensive.”

The president, less than a month before he leaves office and Trump is sworn in, said his decision is in part because he thinks a Trump administration would resume executions that were paused under his watch.

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said in his announcement.

Trump, during the 2024 campaign, called for tougher criminal sentences for drug traffickers, like the death penalty, and he said in 2018 there should be the “ultimate penalty” for drug dealers.

The president’s decision also comes as he has been under pressure to pardon more people after he granted one for his son Hunter Biden.

The president insisted for more than a year that he would not pardon his son, and the about-face stands to be among several stains on his legacy. His decision on Monday to commute federal death row inmates' sentences is part of his pledge to go through with other clemency after facing fire from both sides of the aisle for helping his son.

Biden, only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, campaigned in 2020 on abolishing the federal death penalty. Pope Francis recently prayed for those on death row in the U.S., calling for their sentences to be commuted or changed while Biden was weighing what pardons he would announce before the end of his term.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Monday expressed their gratitude to Biden for commuting the sentences after they advocated for the end of the use of the death penalty. Biden has had some complicated relationships with his faith — he was denounced by some conservative Catholic Bishops early in his administration over his support for abortion access to the point that some concerned denying him communion.

Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun, also praised Biden for the move. She is a leading advocate against the death penalty and wrote the novel “Dead Man Walking.”

“President Biden has commuted death sentences for 37 of the 40 men on federal death row. They will now serve life sentences and cannot be executed. This is a milestone in the fight to shut down the death penalty — thank you!” she said.

Biden previously received some pushback from Catholics for backing away from taking on the death penalty when Attorney General Merrick Garland pursued the death penalty in the case of the shooter at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, which was a first for the administration. When asked about the move at the time, the White House pointed to the independence of the Justice Department. 

Some conservatives were quick to criticize Biden, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called the move “politically convenient.” 

“Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of principled, across-the-board opposition to the death penalty since he didn’t commute the three most politically toxic cases,” the senator said on the social platform X.

Biden even received pushback from fellow Democrats, like Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who has also been critical of Hunter Biden’s pardon. Quigley, who served on the House Judiciary Committee, suggested such a move hurts the court’s autonomy.

“I have real concerns overall with the death penalty, but I also have concerns with the executive branch overturning cases that have been decided by courts across the country,” the Democrat told CNN. “We have to have some autonomy there.”